Summer is way too slow a time for figure collecting. Given the heat and the low melt point of PVC, there’s probably a good reason why July and August feel like all the figure companies went on vacation. Commerce happens year round, so it probably has nothing to do with that and I’m just linking two coinciding patterns that have nothing to do with one another. Still, this time of year it always feels like I’ve stopped collecting figures. Thank goodness Narika arrived to push the summertime blahs away.
The Narika figure from Alter comes from the eroge Beat Blades Haruka, a game from Alice Soft, who know a thing or two about this type of character design. Obviously, the figure depicts Narika in battle gear. It’s eroge battle gear, so not all that practical for anyone but those looking at Narika.
Narika’s battle suit contrasts elements to frame her slender assets. She’s got a giant snowboard blade thing and ballooned out MC Hammer pants. Color-wise the battle regalia uses highly contrasty red and white to flank her pink hair. These high color and high detail areas create a couple of voids to draw the eye to her face and then to her bikini area, which in case you get lost along the way have a couple of line elements pointing straight to it.
I’m real happy with the figure. Alter’s Narika has invigorated my anticipation for the impending fall figure onslaught. What I like is how the twists of Narika’s slender body contrast with the overlarge battle gear elements, that and there’s a pleasing amount of detail rendered in her costume. The sculptor (Aketagawa Noboru) also managed to create some subtle muscle mass in her arms and torso while still keeping her slender looking. Sometimes these thin pettanko characters lack that nuance and have very basic limbs and torsos to maintain the illusion of slenderness. There’s also a pretty pronounced detail in the bikini area, but Narika comes from an eroge, so that’s fine and expected. I’d only consider that kind of detail a bad thing if the character comes from non-eroge roots. Of course, that’s a detail that some find distasteful regardless.
She’s got an ABS leg that connects to the white diamond-shaped base. It’s a very similar mount to the Haruka figure from last year and that’s held up perfectly. The big blade is mounted via a peg on Narika’s back. The right forearm and hand are made from a very flexible plastic so that you’re able to easily get the blade into position and her hand around the grip.
Narika is a great figure. Kodomut has some pics where she’s all wet, which is a nice effect. It was a fun figure to take pictures of simply because it’s just an awesome figure, plus red and white always make a striking color combination.
The more I see this figure, and I see it quite a lot right now, the more I like it
Narika is top notch. If the ero quality doesn’t bug you that is.
Well, at the figure level, with her full regalia, it’s ecchi, not ero.
You are amazing ! Narika is so beautiful in yours pictures. I’am waiting her more
I love “the play of light” (sorry for the bad traduction) on this shooting ! Congratulation ! You are a great photograph ^^ I hope that, one day, I I could make so beautiful picture… That will be hard, I think, regrettably ^^’
Thanks, always too kind in your comments.^^
stopped collecting figures! What were you thinking!
Good to see Alter cut your `plans`. Would be a shame to lose your updates for now and then.
About the figure, I like her dress, but I don’t feel well on the open underwear. Fan-serving you say? Well it just looks cold, she’s so well clothed in exception of the .. well that part.
Hehe, no I didn’t stop, but it feels like it did with all the delays of the summer figures and that it felt really light. I’m also a fall and winter person. The heat of the summer makes me lazy and not want to do anything…this coming from someone born in the tropics.
Every time I’ve seen a photo of this figure I have regretted not preordering her, and even more so now. I’m glad to know you like her up close though. I’ll have to hope I bump into one some day
I’d like to bump into her someday…okay passing thought about being a dating sim character is over.
Man, that is a sweet figure. Like Colette says, regret not preordering her. While the style of figure isn’t my thing, that detail is so amazing…
You heard about kotomut’s melted base?
I definitely drool first then think, wait a minute, did I order that blatantly fanservicey figure…yes, yes I did.^^
It’s an awesome pose for sure. Such a great action shot. The last picture is my favorite. – Nothing but flow…..
- Not too, fond of her lower region either. It’s hot! ,for sure. I just feel dirty looking at it. : )
Anyway. Your Freakin’ awesome super rats. Another top notch shoot, well done!
Certain angles are very photogenic, since the figure flows so well at those viewpoints. Ordinarily, I’d cut 4 of the very redundant photos in this set, but they had something slightly different about them, so I kept them. I like the last one too.
Thanks for the link.
Yeah, Narika chasing the figure dry season away is so true! Love the red flowers in the background in the few of your pics. Seems like you have flowers of every single color at your disposal ^^
Only red, white, and yellow. That I re-use infinitely.^^;
Nice job with the pictures, you managed to pick up the figures essence. Tell me is there a particular reason why you practically upload your pictures as png instead of jpeg?!
Saving to jpeg causes a color and brightness shift. I use Flickr as an image host and they auto generate several sizes from an uploaded photo. If I upload a jpeg, then it’s two color shifts, so I use png as my main file to cut out one color shift. The amount of shift is occasionally surprising. Plus, I’m biased for a lossless format, even if it isn’t all that practical. Why do you ask? Is it the file size of the png prohibitive on the larger images?
No not really. Simply because I saved several pictures to notice the difference between jpeg and png but didn’t notice any differences. I guess I’ll have to try again to see if there any differences in my pictures.
These are really pretty photos of a pretty figure. Narika is very photogenic in my opinion. The colors on her are wonderfully done by Alter too.
Veeeery photogenic. Too much difficulty reducing the set to a functionally better set of photos.
Already got her ? Cd Japan are so slow o send figures sometimes :’(
Awesome pics like always , now i can’t wait to get her ^^
You’re back?! Awesome!!!
The coloring on your shots look really hot! (as hot red). Poor Kodomut, guess a customize base is needed -_-
Great job dude!
Yeah, who knew those lights are THAT hot.
July and August is so hot that Kodomut’s narika base melted
summer heat = Alter Yoko + Narika hotness
Great pics, Master of figure-photography!
Her white base blends in quite well with the backround and isn’t that noticable as usual, nice.
Awesome pics. Congratulations n___n
[...] That’s all for today , hope you liked the pics . And don’t forget to check Super Rats awesome pics of Narika here [...]
[...] in an otherwise dark and shadowy set, they’re good enough, as I found while using them in the Narika shoot. They also make great fill in lights. For the Narika shoot I used it a lot as a narrow fill [...]
great pics of Narika, I quite like her costume with the mecha like look
Ergoge Battle Outfits are the best!
No seriously…You usually can feel the attention of detail the designers gave to a certain eroge character compared to an anime character.Eroges live and fall with the character designs after all.
Gorgeous figure!
Lovely photos again. I love the photos near the end where the deep shadows highlights her curves and details. I’m quite sad that I dropped her pre-order.
Great tip I am definitely going to pick up a set of these lights. Has anyone here tried Zenfolio.com to store images. I just started using them and ordered some prints through my Zenfolio account from MPix and they come out great. The nice thing is that Zenfolio allows you to upload tifs. I use flickr as my repository for my blog, sometimes I pump up my saturation just a little bit because when jpgs shrink they seem to get darker.